As to the course of the fighting and the position
that will develop after it, more reliable, news than is available yet must be awaited ; but the Government, after sanguinary._ engagements . in Which light and heavy artillery -were used; appear to be getting control of the situation. The odds in such a conflict as has been raging in Vienna are.enormously in favour of a trained and disci- plined force supplied with artillery even if their opponents have machine guns as well as rifles. But Vienna, which is Socialist through and through, contains more than a quarter of the population of all Austria, and the Socialists' irregular force, the Schiltzbund, has been in existence long' enough to attain considerable efficiency. The bombard- ment of the splendid block of workers' dwellings is deplorable, and the bitterness which the present conflict, whatever its immediate occasion, must engender will be a dominating factor in Austrian polities for years to come.' The doubtful and perhaps the decisive factor today is of course the attitude of the Austrian Nazis. If they are waiting for the two warring factions, both equally hostile to them, to fight themselves to a standstill they May find the moment for their own coup fixed for them by. others. The alternative—that the Government may derive a new predominance from a victory over the Socialists—is possible but less probable. Dr. Dollfuss is apparently to go forward with, his appeal to the League of Nations regarding German interference, and if Tuesday's developments seem to put that rather in the background their international reactions may make it the more necessary.
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